Photo request for Paignton Zoo’s upcoming centenary celebrations  

Ahead of our centenary next year, Paignton Zoo has been busy trawling through our archives to find photos, videos and stories from the past 100 years. But the thing that makes a zoo a zoo is the people that visit. With this in mind, we are requesting your help.

We’re looking for photos and videos from your visits to Paignton Zoo; treasured memories from the past, and stories that will help us showcase our history and place within the community.

As a long-running local attraction, Paignton Zoo has had a vast impact on the Torbay community and we want to celebrate this through a mutual appreciation of the zoo’s past, present and future.

Paignton Zoo’s founder, Herbert Whitley, opened the gate to the Torbay Zoological Gardens (now known as Paignton Zoo) for the first time in 1923. The zoo has seen a lot of change over the past 100 years, but our mission to provide a place of learning where people can discover the wonders of nature remains just as true today as it was nearly 100 years ago.

Plans for our centenary celebrations are well underway and we are looking forward to showing visitors how far the zoo has come over the past 100 years and our exciting plans for the future.  

If you’d like to share your memories and be part of this exciting project, click here to join our Facebook group.